(Reuters) – Syrian rebels said on Wednesday they had formed a brigade of sympathetic Palestinians in a Damascus district to fight armed Palestinians aligned with President Bashar al-Assad.
About 150,000 Palestinian refugees live in the Syrian capital’s Yarmouk camp, a sprawling area of concrete apartment blocks, where some residents support the 19-month-old uprising against Assad and others fight alongside Syrian soldiers.
“We’ve been arming Palestinians who are willing to fight … We have formed Liwa al-Asifah (Storm Brigade) which is made up of Palestinian fighters only,” a rebel commander from the Suqour al-Golan (Golan Falcons) brigade told Reuters.
“Its task is to be in charge of the Yarmouk camp. We all support it and back it,” he added.
Rebels said they and the new brigade will attack Yarmouk fighters loyal to Ahmed Jibril, head of the Syrian-sponsored Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), accusing Jibril’s men of harassing camp residents and attacking Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters.
“Now they are targets for us, targets for all the FSA. All of them with no exceptions,” said another Syrian rebel commander who asked not to be named.
Reuters has the full article
